I'm sorry for that header picture, but there's just no way to communicate the abject confusion swirling around my brain. Why is there a traveling show called Batman: Live? It will be debuting in the UK this summer, and is slated to hit America in 2012. I just don't understand why this exists. I don't understand who would go see it. I don't understand why the rights holders would sign off on this visual atrocity that can only hurt the value of their brand. I don't understand why the Joker looks like a child molester.

In the next bit of completely inexplicable theater news, why in the world is there a Broadway play based on Sister Act? Was there such massive demand for a stage musical adaptation of a twenty year old Whoopi Goldberg vehicle? I reiterate the Bat-query: why does this exist?

There was one redeeming feature of the movie, which was Goldberg's character dragging the closed in nuns out into their community to actually make a difference. They dropped that in the musical in favor of just having the nuns get excited about singing. Because a sixteenth of an inch of depth just wasn't shallow enough for a musical.

But even more inexplicably is that not only does this exist, but THR covered the debut of it. Someone was paid to go to this, sit through it, and then write the words: "Whoopi Goldberg's absence is felt, but this bouncy musical eventually gets into the habit in a good way."

Once you put something on the Internet, it never goes away, and I'd put nude photos of myself up before I posted a quote like that.

At least an adaptation of Batman and Sister Act have the justification of being based on things with actual plots. But what then is the justification for a Broadway version of Green Day's American Idiot? If I wanted to pay $100 to sit in a chair and listen to an album I already own surrounded by a thousand strangers, I'd get great seats at a baseball game, listen to my iPod, and at least then I could eat a chili dog and not wear a suit.

Technically the Broadway show is old news since the show is wrapping up its original run now, but there's fresh news too. The musical is being adapted into a film.